India Pale Ale is a beer style that's increasingly popular with both craft brewers and beer geeks throughout the United States. By now, you might even say it's mainstream in microbrew circles.

The style was originally developed for the long journey from Great Britain to their troops in India.

Because beer spoils easily without refrigeration, brewers had no choice but to load up on hops, a natural preservative. To balance that move, they added more malt, which upped the alcohol, the other natural preservative.

You can read more about IPAs here.

You get to enjoy it because we like to brew a big, bold beer. Lucky you.

Centennial India Pale Ale

Style Guidelines: First brewed to celebrate our 100th batch, this IPA is Angelo Signorino's favorite. Aging with French white oak contributes a hint of vanilla and whole hop addition adds a citrusy fruitiness. Respect the IPA.

Rotation Schedule: when we thirst for a big beer. That ends up being nearly all the time, at both locations. Little did we know that years later we'd brew three other versions of IPA, yet this one still has that "it" factor. Yeah, it's that good.

Food Pairings: While hops can kill your tastebuds, they do make for some particularly good matches -- seafood made any way -- fried, smoked, boiled, steamed or broiled. IPA can enhance the spiciness of highly spiced cuisine, including Indian and Thai.

Body: medium

Color: copper

Grain: British lager and crystal

Bittering Hops: American Centennial and British Fuggle

Finishing Hops: American Centennial and British Fuggle

Dry Hops: American Centennial and Willamette

Finished with: French and Hungarian toasted oak

Original Gravity: 1.074

IBUs (estimate): 71

Alcohol By Volume: 7.6%

First Tapped: August 1994

Barley's Smokehouse & Brewpub Ale House No. 1xx 467 North High Street Columbus OH 43215

Barley's Smokehouse & Brewpub Ale House No. 2 1130 Dublin Road Columbus OH 43215